Adaptive Curmudgeon

Dire times have led to a few dire-ish posts on my part. It’s not intentional. The world feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket but it’s so obvious as to not need further discussion. For that matter, when was the last time things weren’t going to shit?

It’s probably more a reflection of bad weather for camping than any particular variety of Bidenverse inanity. Isn’t that silly? I didn’t have time to ignore the dumpster fire and write about all that’s wonderful; but that’s the goal. Sit by a campfire watching the moon rise and you won’t give a shit about the “news”.

Everything Elon releasing is something we already knew years ago. All the inflation is basic math. Mitch McConnell acting like a toad is… well when doesn’t he fuck his own party? Who is the last remaining fool that didn’t think COVID came from the lab in Wuhan? Discussing how often Fauchi was incorrect is like suddenly discovering the sun rises in the East. Why discuss what everyone sane already knew and the Kool-Aid drinkers will never accept?

Speaking of people I ignore, what’s up with Kayne West? Have I heard any of his songs? (If he’s some sort of amazing virtuoso I’m willing to be corrected.) As far as I can tell he’s a washed up rapper acting like a loon. What’s news about that? Aren’t they a dime a dozen?

Anyway, it’s time for something 70 years old which seems (in my pointy head) to mirror what happened (and didn’t) during the shitstorm of 2022. (It was only a year ago that president “won more votes than any other candidate in history” was going full Nuremberg.)

It’s an optimistic story called “And Then There Were None“. It was written by Eric Frank Russell in 1951. You can find it by this link or by clicking to  in Astounding Science Fiction magazine (Vol. XLVII, No. 4). (Or you can get if by *.pdf.)

It’s free, under 40 pages, and you’ll enjoy reading it. Lets be serious here, it’s better use of your time than most of what’s on the internet. It’s a mellow happy science fiction story from back when science fiction was fun.

Give yourself a treat. Despite publishers who’ve made the last few decades of sci-fi mostly about woke lesbians bitching about recycling during a dystopic global-warming hellscape… I prefer sci-fi that’s fun.

Here are a few quotes to get the blood flowing:

“For one solitary guy it would be martyrdom, but for a whole world—” His voice drifted off, came back. “I’ve been taking this about as far as I can make it go and the results give me the leaping fantods.”

And…

“I was thinking,” Harrison explained.

“I approve of that,” put in His Excellency. He lugged a couple of huge tomes out of the wall-shelves, began to thumb rapidly through them. “Do plenty of thinking whenever you’ve the chance and it will become a habit. It will get easier and easier as time rolls on. In fact, a day may come when it can be done without pain.”

Yeah, that’s the stuff.

Hat tip to Dio’s Workshop and Liberty’s Torch.

Lord of War is an excellent movie. Before you read further, watch this scene. It’s in two parts; life is like that. The first is 5 minutes long the second is under 2 and picks up immediately following. It’s less than 8 minutes total and it’s brilliant:

So why am I posting bits of a seventeen year old movie? Because today Viktor Bout: Russian arms dealer known as the ‘Merchant of Death’ was swapped for Brittney Griner:

Bout – who reportedly has used names including “Victor Anatoliyevich Bout,” “Victor But,” “Viktor Butt,” “Viktor Bulakin” and “Vadim Markovich Aminov” – is thought to have been the inspiration for the arms-dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie “Lord of War.”

Let’s boil it down to bullet points.

• Viktor Bout was convicted in an American court of law as an arms dealer. By all accounts he’s guilty.
• Brittney Griner was convicted in a Russian court of law of drug violations. No matter what your opinion of drug laws or basketball players or Russia may be, Griner took drugs across the border. She is, was, and remains guilty.
• President Joe Biden, who got more votes than any presidential candidate in history and has more political prisoners in jail right now than any other president since FDR put Americans in concentration camps, traded a guilty arms dealer to Russia so that he could free a guilty basketball player.

I mentioned Epstein because it fits this topic. Epstein’s existence was “resolved” in a way that included missing video evidence. The two guards who were supposedly watching him had the charges against them dropped. His “second in command”, Ghislaine Maxwell, was sentenced to 20 years for trafficking minors to nobody.

Seems legit.

On the same topic, convicted drug kingpin Edgar Valdez-Villareal (a.k.a. La Barbie) is apparently missing.

A cartel leader and hitman fond of videotaping torture sessions and decapitating likely dozens of enemies has gone missing from a federal prison in Florida, where he was serving a 49-year sentence.

If you had asked me a few years ago I would have been less cynical. America, for all its faults, used to more or less follow the law. I would have said; “I’m sure “La Barbie” is still in prison and some dude just misplaced the paperwork that updates the web page. He’ll turn up when they straighten it out.”

Now… it’s different. It’s not just that I see things differently, things really are different. It is simply true that corruption is both more common and more obvious. Absolutely blatant in fact. Now, unlike the past, everyone knows that America keeps political prisoners, trades arms dealers to Russia, and Epstein didn’t kill himself.

Hat tip to Thompson Blog. (Note: he’s recently renovated his digs… very nice.)

Unless you live under a rock you know that two electric substations were damaged, leading to a power outage in North Carolina.

I’m not interested theories about who did it or why. Frankly I don’t give a shit; not my circus, not my monkeys. Though I do think it’s funny that the FBI announced they’ll get out of the “causing crime” business long enough to “solve” this one. Given their track record, they’re more likely to freak out and kill 86 innocent Jesus freaks than use their Bat computer to sleuth out this mystery.

(It’ll be interesting to find out if the dipshit that did it is on their payroll, as is often the case. If they come up with a cockamamie story about a lone actor using 24 guns before they memory hole the entire event he or she or it  was one of their wind up toys. If the dipshit wasn’t on their payroll they’ll pin it on the nearest person who didn’t vote Democrat. Then they’ll get back to their real job of disappearing evidence that embarrasses Democrats or hassling some parent at a school board meeting.)

What interest me, is that they (the press) called it “vandalism”. Not once, but all over the place. (I took examples from one article but you’re welcome to read others for yourself. Check and see if you hear the same word repeated over and over.)

“As utility companies began responding to the different substations, evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,”

At least two substations were vandalized “with criminal intent,”

“We are also investigating signs of potential vandalism related to the outages,”

I call bullshit. Pay attention kids because this will be on the final exam. Get out your pencil and write this shit down:

There is a difference between vandalism and sabotage.

Yes indeed, this is a whole new kettle of fish. It’s yet another step on the decline. When you see something new it behooves you to observe. Take time, breathe in the air, accept the passing of one world and the beginning of the next. Mark where you were and what you were doing as this new thing became part of your world. Commit the new knowledge to memory because in the future, as shitty situations level up into full shitstorms, you’ll reflect on this moment of change.

And for God’s sake, don’t deny the obvious. Taking out the grid is not in the same category as some fuckwit painting his name on a boxcar!

Someone instructed (or perhaps it developed as emergent behavior in the school of fish) that the only word to use is “vandalism” (at least until they can pin it on some MAGA Trump patsy and call it terrorism). I’m starting to theorize that the press (and the monkeys running DC) know this is a big deal. They’re pants shitting, flat out, no holds barred, panicked. They don’t even want to speak the world aloud, lest they call Voldemort into existence. Except, the world isn’t social media. What they call it doesn’t matter. They can call it “rainbow happy time” and it’s still fucking sabotage!

I clicked on a few online dictionaries to back me up but they’re getting pretty NewSpeak. Rather than waste brain cells sorting this week’s gaslighting from last years shenanigans amid the current of a rapidly declining populace, I tried a different approach. I looked at one of my dead tree dictionaries.

Go ahead propagandists, censors, and woke morons, try to fix the “misinfomation” on a printed & bound college edition dictionary from 1959!

Lets start with “vandalism” (sorry for the blurry photos, I just took a few snapshots):

Vandalism: malicious or ignorant destruction, especially of that which is beautiful or artistic.

Is a power substation beautiful or artistic? Not unless you get off on industrial wiring. Ya’ freak!

Was it ignorant destruction? I don’t think so. It seems the very exact opposite of ignorant. Nobody else thinks it’s ignorant either:

“It was targeted, it wasn’t random,” he said.

“The person, or persons, who did this knew exactly what they were doing,”

Nope, this absolutely wasn’t an attack on beautiful art by people who were ignorant. (That’s a thing that has happened lately, but not here.)

Lets check out “sabotage”:

Sabotage: “Intentional destruction of machines, materials, or some productive process or organized activity. Examples include labor disputes, and enemy agents in time of war.

Damn! Clearly sabotage is a whole lot more serious. Vandalism is some kid spray painting a dick on a wall. Sabotage is when someone targets serious things to cause serious problems; like power substation, a factory, or a pipeline.

I don’t know why everyone is so afraid of using the true name of things. Words are words. Reality is reality. Regardless, whatever happened… it ‘aint vandalism.

Also, I want to make the point that this is definitely a bad thing. I’m not happy with the decline in civilization. I don’t want to be the medieval loser left to scratch out a living amid the ruins of Roman marble halls. Shitting in a bucket next to an aqueduct that no longer functions sounds horrible. The power grid is probably one of the greatest achievements in human existence. It’s gonna’ suck if it all falls apart after only 100 +/- years.

To avoid ending on a dire note I’ll provide this:

P.S. Before I put the dictionary away, should I check? You know you want it! Fine; here it is:

Vaccine: a causative virus or preparation of dead bacteria induced into the body to produce immunity by causing antibodies.

Hm…

Was it a virus or dead bacteria? No.

Did it produce immunity? No.

I just sayin…

A few years ago I was listening to college lectures about medieval history and was struck by the clarity of the professor.

Don’t judge! One of my hobbies is learnin’ stuff I didn’t already know. As a product of American public school I didn’t know shit about medieval history! (You probably don’t either.)

One of the more interesting (to me) topics was the Inquisition.

It wasn’t the gore and violence and corruption that interested me. It was the vocabulary.

The professor didn’t default to the vague pathetic phrasings of the common generic current-era woke dipshit student or mid-wit prof. Being skilled enough that he could run a side gig selling lectures and knowing non-students like me actually wanted to learn, he didn’t dumb it down. He carefully he used the correct vocabulary in the proper context.

A default professorial nullity would dumb it down until it hurt: (“Inquisition = Bad”). This would include wrapping actual knowledge in modern sensibilities (“Inquisition = Women and minorities hurt most”).

Using the proper terminology, as befitting serious events, made it a better experience. Events happened to legitimately devout peasants and they wouldn’t have thought in Marx/athiest garbled NewSpeak. In using the right words the lectures felt almost poetic.

We forget how to use the right words for things. There are English words that are perfectly adequate to most situations. They come from a time when words actually meant things. Words were once used to convey thoughts precisely instead of bury facts that might make us use our intellect. Unlike our current world of perpetual relativism which is a vocabulary of nudges and winks.

For example (and I’m just paraphrasing here), the Inquisition derived its authority from the Papacy. It was interested in the sin of heresy, which had arisen from schism within the Catholic church. Inquisitors sought out testimony and considered evidence (obviously lacking evidentiary rules we currently take for granted). There were protections (though less than ideal) against false accusations. There was consideration whether a transgression was merely odious or truly sinful.

We assume the Inquisition just threw box lots of innocents into a wood chipper but it was more of a spectrum (with the Spanish Inquisition taking the gold in the terrifying psychopaths category). More often than not, blots on the accused person’s soul (and life!) could be rectified. For many, a simple admission of remorse and a public vow to turn from the path of wickedness was enough. Friends, relatives, and neighbors would vouch for the accused. Assured that henceforth the accused would model proper behavior would merit forgiveness and everyone would breathe a sigh of relief as the Inquisitors moved on from Springfield to far off Shelbyville. Even if you were an ornery cuss, you had a fair shot with repentance, atonement, and/or demonstration of good character.

Depending on the era and actors involved (and your past behavior towards your neighbors, the morality of the nearby Bishop, and how much the church coveted your assets) things might go off the rails. (See the Spanish!) Also, if you were a flat out asshole they might fling your butt into a dungeon faster than you can say “your legal defense has been ignored”.

(Have you ever wondered what situation would make anyone wish they’d been nicer to your neighbors? The Inquisition (again, with some exception for those whacky Spaniards) was all about that. Keeping malcontents from getting out of hand in hopes of maintaining social order seemed as important as spiritual purity! In modern times you might rip off everyone in town at your used car lot and nothing will happen. An old style Inquisition rolling through town shortly after you’d dumped a bunch of clapped out Hondas on unsuspecting villagers, might involved wronged parties extracting serious karmic payback! [Note that “karma” is not a Catholic / European concept of the time. Probably the better phrase would be righteous retribution.])

Look at all of those words in bold! How often do you hear them spoken in modern time? We still have sin and malcontents and (a seriously faded) concept of morality. But we tiptoe around even speaking such ideas. None of this is to defend the Inquisition (they were clearly dangerous people prone to the inevitable corruption that results from unchecked power) but my point is that one cannot intelligently discuss the real world using the vocabulary of a child. 15th century European events came with powerful words like God and repentance. 21st century events merit the same level of discourse.

Listen to modern bullshit and you’ll hear what I’m talking about. It’s all a mishmash of weasel words. “Mistakes were made”; by whom? “Follow the science”; without apparently using the scientific method? Hunter Biden’s laptop is “misinformation”; yet it’s verifiably true. January 6th was an “insurrection”; of unarmed people who voluntarily dispersed? Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were guilting of sex trafficking; to nobody.

How can “misinformation” be true? How can a mistake exist without having been made by anyone? How can a victim be sex trafficked to nobody?

When I hear weasel words I ignore the speaker. Those who talk as children, think as children.

In my next post I’ll talk about vocabulary and the power grid.

[I didn’t know how to communicate my thoughts for this post. Ever had something to say that eludes your ability to write? Bear with me as I give it a shot.]

How deep does the rabbit hole go? Deep enough that:

1. I wish they’d stop digging.
2. I ain’t going down there!

The second point is key. I don’t want to go to hell even if everyone else insists on riding there in their stupid little handbasket.

By now, chaos is just another name for Tuesday. We’re in the third year of “OMG we’re all gonna’ die in a plague”. Coincidentally, the pandemic freakout began in the third year of the “OMG Orange Man Bad” psychic shitstorm. The shitstorm never ended but entered a new phase with the “we’re going to peacefully protest until there’s nothing but ashes” clusterfuck. Have you noticed there’s always an urgent reason folks use to excuse shitting their own pants?

Way back in 2017 I figured people would get tired of self-flagellating and get back to living life; like a toddler burning out after a long tantrum. I was wrong! I moved on but society itself remains in a self-reinforcing loop of failure.

So long as chaos benefits one party (or the uniparty) “emergencies” will never end. So long as we’re an unserious society, we’ll be awash in bullshit. Wise people (including wise asses) see the futility of engagement with chaotic unhinged human bots. We’re unwilling to shoulder the burden of other people’s self-inflicted ills. We stay checked out of the “panic of the day” whirlwind. We carefully root ourselves in reality. As for the rest:

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

None of this shit will end through normal means; self correcting mechanisms have been thwarted. When a group of people fuck up everything they touch, they should be replaced with better people. For various reasons that’s not happening. In terms of medicine, has Fauchi ever cured anyone who was sick? If not, why the hell would anyone listen to him? In economics, Paul Krugman is wrong about everything he says. The same is true for Robert Reich and for that matter Jim Cramer. Why would anyone listen to them? Public schools have a terrible track record in education. So why do parents let people who can’t even teach fractions expand into morals, ethics, or sex. Biden was either unwilling or incapable of leaving his basement to campaign. A man who can’t leave his house is going to be a shitty president; and he is. When people who fail aren’t replaced by people who perform you continue to get failure.

Even if elections were squeaky clean, voting once every two years ain’t enough.* You can’t solve a world where losers are put in charge by checking a few boxes bi-annually. However, this brings our focus to the elephant in the room…

“Joe Biden won more votes than any other candidate in American history.” Say it! “Joe Biden did better in off year elections than almost any president in the last century.” Go ahead, say it aloud.

You’re required (almost literally by law) to pretend it’s true. So go ahead and speak the words aloud and see how you feel. Tell your cat that “Joe Biden won more votes than any other candidate in history”. Repeat the official line (assuming you don’t believe it) and you become a tool of your oppressor. Did the cat scratch your lying ass?

We just experienced the second consecutive “election of statistical improbability that can’t possibly mean anything at all so shut up“. The first “statistical surprise” shocked even cynics like me. The second “statistical oddity” is only a few weeks old but EVERYONE knows what it means. If it worked in 2020 that’s possibly a one off but if it happened again in 2022, then “unforeseen unusualness” will happen continually until the gambit no longer works.

Perhaps I was fool to trust any election? Did the cheating really just start? 2020 was so obviously weird that an accountant seeing similar shenanigans in your bank statement would nail you to a wall. But weren’t the hanging chads of Bush v Gore 2000 not the same situation? How long has this been happening? Nobody is surprised when they read about the Chicago effect during Nixon v JFK 1960. Are we all as fixed as Chicago has always been? It’s as old as human corruption. 1876 had flat out proven cheating. Interestingly, the cheating was unearthed, aired out, and dealt with more peacefully and intelligently in 1876 than the concertina wire and political prisoners mess set off in 2020.

When the selection process is shit, you get shit results. Nobody knows who’s really running things and Biden is a barely ambulant meat puppet. Even the people who voted for him don’t really like him. Nobody thinks he’s a good president. Ask your leftie friends to speak aloud a statement like “Biden won more votes than any other candidate in history and is therefore the best president ever”. Watch their eyes when they say it. They know.

Events, both wise and foolish, have consequences and they hit fast. It took a year for Orange Man bad to make a roaring economy out of Obama’s seized engine. It took a year for Captain Dementia to curbstomp Orange Man’s roaring economy. Today’s economy is the worst since Carter. It matches the current leadership’s inability. We will have Carter level inflation and Carter style gas prices so long as we have Carter level dipshits. This is true regardless of party (it wasn’t Dems who desperately wanted to run the walking human sedative called Jeb Bush).

I dimly remember poverty and inflation in the 1970’s but not shortages at the grocery store. This was followed by four decades of success so complete that I began to doubt my memories of inflation. Now, I get to see it all over again but with “supply chain disruption” (which is the phrase to used to avoid saying “predictable results of idiots messing with the economy”). People younger than me had never experienced failure this great. They’re beginning to bleed and the party’s just starting. Presumably the wonderous socialist miracle of food shortages and gas lines are only a few “improbable” elections away.

Given all that, I would expect to be in the same sour mood as the rest of the nation. However, I feel vaguely optimistic.

I queued up this video to enjoy the feeling of the times. (If you need a NSFW warning after the title of this post you’re clearly stupid… but here goes: they swear. Grasp your pearls and toddle to the fainting couch as needed.) I figured I would use the video to express rage.

But I don’t have rage to express. I’m not particularly pissed off because all the fucking up that’s happening is not mine to claim. I’m not the cause of problems. That’s key. Society going to shit doesn’t mean I’m shit.

Anger is for those who just realized what’s going on and more commonly for those who feel bad about what they’ve done. Helpless resignation is poison. I have my faults but neither being unaware nor helpless resignation are among them. If you’re reading this, it’s probably not an issue for you either. We saw these things coming. We weren’t the players creating them.

As bad goes to worse and stupid goes to malevolent we have a clean conscience. It would be better if things weren’t almost comically mismanaged but at least we have pride in our own behavior.

I’ve been happily humming “we are fucking fucked” as if it were any other song. Because it is:

(Hat tip to 357 Magnum.)

So what’s the deal? I’m happy because my freezer is full and it’s full because I made it so.

As the decline accelerates, there are a million little situations where I stood firm. Thus, I don’t feel guilty. For example, I didn’t go apeshit during COVID and I didn’t use it as an excuse to fuck up other people’s lives. I generally try to avoid fucking up my own life too. Basic human behavior that puts me far above politicians. Who gets into naked hammer fights, flew on Epstein’s plane, has a mansion on a $200K salary, or drowned their secretary to death? Politicians. Not me.

I never boss other people around. I won’t submit to coercion. I think before I act.

I didn’t wear a mask because I can define a micron and know the size of a virus. I know the difference between medicine and an “amulet of protection”. I know that when the man on TV says a lie, it’s still a lie. I didn’t shut down schools or businesses. When the gym required masks, I quit and stacked wood. I didn’t get the shot for a free donut because that’s dumb. If I really believed in perfect immunity to a plague that would surely kill me, I wouldn’t need a fucking donut to seal the deal.

When the president said he’d make all OSHA employees take the vax I didn’t bend the knee. He could have ordered me to eat chocolate ice cream and I’d have fought that too. I won’t move a fucking inch if someone is trying to force me. In the end, God seemed happy with my decision. As far as I can tell, every single human being on earth who refused the vax is happy with their decision. Could the other side say as much?

How good it feels that  I didn’t panic and lose my soul!

I never fomented evil. I never caused harm. I never backed down. Given how people have acted lately, I’ve done well enough.

I could have done better, but I did as well as I could. That’s the satisfaction of an internal locus of control. It feels good. If far off government fucks the economy back to the stone age they still won’t have broken me. I’ll master flintknapping and sell non-OSHA approved arrowheads.

That’s why I can enjoy a song like “We Are Fucking Fucked” without bitterness. I might be just as fucked as a Roman citizen just before the fall… but I didn’t cause the fall.

A.C.

*You know where I was during the election? Right in the fucking room. The election was squeaky clean and boring in my district. I know this because I was right there holding the stack of ballots in my hand. Where were you?